Pan-Arabism

Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification of the countries of the Arab World (in both the Middle East and North Africa). The ideology is closely associated with Arab nationalism, and it was most popular during the 1950s and 1960s, during which Nasserism and Ba'athism grew into major political ideologies in the Arab world. However, the defeat of the Arab nations by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, the failure of the United Arab Republic, the inability of the Arab governments to generate economic growth, and Egyptians' tendencies to identify as "Egyptian" instead of "Arab" led to the decline of pan-Arabism. By the 1980s, pan-Arabism had been overshadowed by Islamism and nationalism, and pan-Arabism became nothing more than a wishful goal.